Complaints Policy
We are committed to delivering quality professional services. If something goes wrong, or you become concerned about our service, please tell us. We will investigate your concerns thoroughly. You can raise your concerns in writing (by email or letter), at a meeting or by telephone (we may require you to confirm your concerns in writing to enable us to investigate properly).
You should contact the Firm’s Principal Richard Barratt.
Email: rbarratt@barrattlegal.com
Address: Barratt Legal
Burlesden, The Mount, Flimwell, Wadhurst E.Sussex TN5 7QN
Telephone: 01580878038
We will send an acknowledgement of your complaint within 3 working days of receiving it. We will consider your complaint, carry out an investigation and provide a written response within 28 days. If the matter is complex and takes longer to deal with, we will contact you within 14 days to give you an approximate timescale of when we will be able to respond. We may suggest a meeting, where we feel it would be helpful.
If we do not receive a response from you within 4 weeks of the date of our final response, we will assume that your concern has been resolved and close the complaint.
If we are unable to resolve your complaint within 8 weeks, or if you remain dissatisfied, then you may be entitled to take your complaint to the Legal Ombudsman. The Legal Ombudsman provides a separate and independent scheme to resolve complaints.
Email: enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk.
Address: The Legal Ombudsman, PO Box 6806, Wolverhampton, WV1 9WJ.
Telephone: 0300 555 0333 between 9.00 and 17.00.
Website: www.legalombudsman.org.uk.
Not all clients will be entitled to have their complaint reviewed in this way so please check the scheme rules for further details. The Legal Ombudsman generally will require you to have first raised your complaint with us before you involve them.
Strict time limits apply. Normally we have eight weeks to try and resolve your complaint before the Legal Ombudsman can become involved (the scheme rules contain certain limited exceptions). If you remain dissatisfied, you must refer your complaint to the Legal Ombudsman within six months from the date of our written response to your complaint, and no more than one year from the date of act/ omission being complained about, or no more than one year from when you should reasonably have known there was cause for complaint.
You can refer your concerns to the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) if you believe that we have breached the SRA Principles, which govern our conduct: www.sra.org.uk/solicitors/standards-regulations/principles.
Address: Solicitors Regulation Authority, The Cube, 199 Wharf Street, Birmingham B1 1RN.
Telephone: 0370 606 2555
Website: www.sra.org.uk/contactus/
If you are a consumer client i.e. where you have instructed us for purposes outside of your trade or business and we have made a contract with you by electronic means you may be entitled to use an EU online dispute resolution service to assist with any contractual dispute you may have with us. This service can be found at http://ec.europa.eu/odr/. Our email address is info@barrattlegal.co.uk.